Another One!

We just got another offer on our house. This one is offering full price! We accepted it! I'm super stoked, but I'm freaking out a little that it's all happening so fast. Our closing date won't be until the 7th of July so we have some time to look around for new houses. We're going out on Monday to see what we can see. Wish us luck!

Wow! That was fast

Yikes! Life's moving at lightening speed. But they say when things are right, they're right. We got our first offer on our house. We countered a few things on it. I'll keep you posted!!!!

Over the Hump!

This is a very joyous day! Ryan just finished the class that marked the halfway point in his schooling. It's all downhill from here! Or wait... is it uphill from here? Do you love this picture? That's me on the left celebrating my little heart out. Ryan... well, he's still just focusing hard on making the grade and getting through. T- 2 years and counting!

One Very Sad Khursten

I think Khursten has been hoping this whole, 'let's move' thing was just a big, elaborate joke. Last night while she was at her best pal's house, our realtor came and put up the For Sale sign. When I called her home, I watched out the window to see her reaction. She had the happiest, brightest smile on her face as she was running home. Then she noticed the sign. She got up real close and read it, took out one of the flyers and studied it thoughtfully, then she hung her head so low and walked inside. Big tears were welling up in her eyes as she came through the door. "We're really moving, aren't we?" she asked. All I could do was nod slowly and give her a big hug. Last May another best friend of hers moved out of state. I too, have the on-going curse of best friends who move far away. I know what a trauma it can be. It feels a little selfish to steal her away from her new best pal. The stories of the future adventures we're bound to have don't seem to do much to soothe her soul. Poor girl.

4 Sale

I kind of half-way made the announcement at church yesterday that we are moving. It won't be official, and our sign won't be up until tomorrow. It just feels like the time to move on. I'm kind of sad to leave behind all of the friends I've made in the River Oaks 4th ward. :( We're still completely directionless as to where it is we actually want to move. I would love to move to Sandy so I could be 'home'. I think I can pretty much only afford a mobile home in Sandy though. We have talked about moving up north to Davis County. We have been looking a bit up there and have found that we can have twice the house we have now for less money than we can sell our house for. That would be awesome. Ryan works downtown so we're thinking the commute from up north wouldn't be too much worse. I'm a little scared to venture so far from family. I know most of you live hundreds and hundreds of miles from your family, but the furthest I've ventured has been about 10 miles. This would be a huge change for me. I'm looking forward to putting down roots of my own and starting a life independent (although still within a easy driving distance from my fam). My realtor came and took pictures yesterday. Here are the ones he's putting on our flyer. (OK so if I am to be honest, I realized I'm kind of a photography snob and I totally retook the pictures with my camera. I just think you get better color when you don't use a flash. With a flash things get bleached out and you are left with a color cast over the picture. Sorry Craig. I know... I'm so completely obnoxious. It is what it is though.) Anyway... here are my pictures of our house. These are the rooms he thought would be most pertinent to a sale. If you're interested in our beautiful 2K sq. ft. 4 bedroom, 3 bath home complete with loft and fireplace located in a terrific area just a few blocks north of the Jordan River temple click here.

Here's the view from the entry-way

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Living Room

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Kitchen

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Family Room

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View From Loft (Thanks to Aunt Byrdie for furnishing the entire room. Wait... with a little help of Tamara's in-laws too. Free stuff is great!)

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Loft

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Master Bedroom

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Upstairs Bath

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Laundry Room (This room is ugly and messy. It just is. There's no beautifying it)

So Proud of Us

OK, can I just take this moment to pat myself (and Ryan and my parents) on the back? We worked so hard today and I'm dead tired, but when I look outside I can tell that our hard work paid off. From about 7:30 this morning until 3:00 this afternoon we worked outside in our backyard. In the summer we love to have parties and invite friends over for BBQs. When we we were buying our house, the one thing we wanted was a great back yard. When we first moved in, we spent every spare second outside making our yard beautiful. Since Ryan's been going to school the yard has been slowly getting out of control. My parents with their expertise and endless supply of fabulous tools (which we now think we need to own), were willing to come and help out. Between the 4 of us we whipped it back into shape. And it looks pretty darn good (if I do say so myself). I am so mad that the thought didn't occur to me to take some 'before' pictures, but here are a couple of 'afters'. Hooray for our yard! We're sure gonna miss ya!

Eat Dem!

It is not an uncommon site to find Audrey holding down our cat, shoving her face into her bowl of food and yelling, "Eat Dem!". I was folding laundry this morning and heard just such a commotion behind me. "Eat dem! Eat dem! Eat dem kitty!" Without turning around I said, "Audrey... let the kitty go. She's not hungry right now." Then it occured to me that cat food is on my shopping list and we are completely out right now. "Oh no," I thought, "What is she feeding the cat this time?" I turn around, move Audrey, move the cat, and look in the bowl. You'll never guess what I found. A whole bowl full of little cat poops crusted with kitty litter. Mmmm....mmm...mmm. Nothin' better than that! I guess Audrey noticed we were out of food and decided to go digging for some more. Very resourceful, but Urghhh! (I decided to spare you all a picture of what I found.) She just couldn't figure out why I was yelling, "Oh gross! Don't touch anything!" Needless to say, Audrey got a rather hot bath with a whole lot of soap. Oh the joys! And we wonder why we have the world's craziest cat.

Graduation Day

I guess it's kind of Allie's week. Today was her big preschool graduation. We were lucky enough to find the world's most awesome preschool program for her. She was in a classroom with 1/2 developmentally delayed children and 1/2 non-delayed. She had the opportunity to be a peer leader for the developmentally delayed children. She thought that was pretty cool. Her teachers put on a pretty darn cute graduation program. Ryan, Audrey, and I went to see her this morning.

Here's Allie with her amazing teachers. All five ladies work in her classroom with the children.

Front Row L to R: Miss Kay (aide) , Allie, Miss Kalynn (aide)
Back Row L to R: Miss Sally (teacher), Miss Tammy (aide), Miss Erica (Speech Therapist)

Here's the entire '08 Graduating class

Showing us that she actually can sit still and act like an angel. Please note her fancy red dress. She told me that today was a very special day and she needed a very fancy dress. She chose to wear her flower girl dress from Uncle Kevin's wedding. We even curled her hair. She looked beautiful.

Tooty Ta a Tooty Ta a Tooty Ta Ta. Thumbs up!

Thumbs Up, Elbows Back, Feet Together, Bottoms Out, Tongues Out!

Old McDonald with sign language (I think this is 'pig')

Receiving her diploma. Congratulations!

A little game of 'eye spy' started by Allie. This led to all diplomas being confiscated until after the ceremony was over.

Going on a bear hunt. What do you see?

Can't go over it!

We're so proud of you Allie. You've made preschool such a good year. We can't wait to see what you can do in Kindergarten!

I'm That Mom

I'm that mom. I was picking out clothes for Allie to wear to school today and she told me today was water day and she needs to wear her swimming suit to school today.

"Wait... what? Yesterday was water day. I sent you to school in your swimming suit yesterday. "

"You were wrong mom. It was water day for the 3-year-olds. I'm 5. My teacher said you need to look at the calendar she sent home."

So ya... I'm that mom. I feel kind of lame, but what are ya gonna do? I'm just lucky it's preschool and you're not a social outcast if you show up in swimwear by mistake. But really, why didn't I hear about this yesterday? When I asked Allie about her day and she rambled off a list of things she did, the things she talked about sounded like they could have been water games! How embarrassing.

Soccer

Ryan loves playing soccer. As soon as the girls were old enough to run they were drafted into his team. He's an incredibly great and very patient coach. With one-man teams and a swing-set goal, it makes for some great times at our house.

Addicted To Blogging

I saw this on my cousin's blog and I thought it was kind of cute so I stole it. Thanks! Is anyone out there as addicted at I am? If you take the test, you'll have to let me know your score. I'm guessing I'll find that I'm not alone in this blogging love. ;)

68%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Don't Ignore the Signs!

This is blog post #2 for the day, but I had to tell you all a fun little story. We needed a new toaster. The one we had was the one we got for our wedding 9 years ago. It's finally had the green twinkie and continually burns EVERYTHING we try to toast. I decided that today was the day for our new toaster. I was so caught up in my quest for a new toaster that I paid no attention to all of the signs of the universe telling me that today was not a good day to go to the store. I told Khursten we were heading to the store to buy a new toaster and she burst into tears. She and her best pal had much better plans for today. (Sign #1) As I was dealing with Khursten's tears, Audrey got out the pitcher of raspberry guava juice and decided to try and drink straight from it. This of course led to her taking a raspberry guava bath. (Sign #2) I went up and changed Audrey and finally got all three girls buckled into the car. I closed the door behind them and wooops! I closed my shirt in the door. Didn't notice, of course, and started to walk away and rip, there goes my shirt. (Sign #3)

But being as determined as I was to get my new toaster, I kept pushing forward. We arrived at the store... everything was going fine until... OUCH! Some 90-year-old lady ran her cart right over my big toe bending the toenail back and snapping it off. I ran over to the conveniently placed roll of paper-towels, cleaned myself up, and off I went. I picked out a beautiful shiny new toaster and decided that the girls really needed new swimming suits for this wonderful warm weather we've been having. On my way to the swimming suits Audrey grabbed a tag from a shirt. I didn't notice she had a hold of it and kept pushing her in the cart and... OUCH! Huge paper cut. I run back over to the roll of paper towels and try to clean her up too. But of course the bleeding won't stop. I run up front to ask for a bandaid and they are completely out. Really? No bandaids? (Khursten later pointed out to me that I could have just gone and bought some. Too bad I didn't think of that) So I tell the girls that today may not be the day for new swimming suits. The look of sheer devastation in their eyes melts my heart and we head back over to start looking. I am trying my hardest to steer them in the direction of the nice one-piece swim suits that come with cute little cover-up shorts. They notice that the one-piece swimsuits are not nearly as brightly colored and beautiful as the skimpy, baby-sized, string bikinis on the next rack over. Time for a lesson in modesty. Meanwhile, Audrey's still crying and bleeding all over herself.

We finally make it up front to check out and what happens next? The registers go off-line and it's a 25 minute hand-written nightmare with one very done mommy, two very anxious and extremely silly girls, and one very sad Audrey.

Next time I think I'll pay closer attention to the signs.

Knock Knock

For some reason, driving time has become knock knock joke time. Without fail, every time we're in the car for more than 5 minutes, the girls start up with the knock knock jokes. These are the current favorites.

Khursten:
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Cows say
Cows say who?
Cows don't say who they say moo.

Allie:
Knock Knock
Who's There?
Banana
Banana who?
banana banana banana banana knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
banana banana banana banana knock knock (This can go on for upwards of 5 minutes)
who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

Audrey:
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Cheese (always cheese)
Cheese who?
Cheese (followed by hysterical laughter)

Thanks for making driving around so much fun girls.

Oops

A couple of weeks ago Ryan and I realized that we've inadvertently been teaching Audrey the wrong word for things. I have been trying my darndest to un-teach her, but she's the most stubborn 2-year-old around and refuses to believe that she could possibly have been wrong. Here are a few examples:

1. Door = openit I think this is because we always say, "Can you open it?"
2. Bike = hopon Again, this is because we always say, "Can you hop on?"
3. Car = home This one's a little bit trickier to figure out. The only thing I can think is when we say it's time to go home we always get in the car.
4. Chair = climbup because we say, "Climb up Audrey"
5. Bib = Bibon
6. Shoes = Shoeson Starting to see a trend here?
7. Clothes = getdessed This one actually cracks me up because she'll find a dress or shirt or something she wants to wear and will say, "Oh cute getdessed."

So the lesson I am learning from this is that we need to start being really careful to call everything by it's proper name and enunciate very well before we severely hinder our child's development.

Allie the Artist

This makes me smile. Allie is such a great little artist. It makes me happy watching her draw. I, too, love art very much. (I also love commas and never know quite when to use them appropriately. This is my one and only disclaimer for the comma splicing. It's part of who I am. Thanks to all of you who have so lovingly pointed this out to me) I love to draw and paint and I don't really do it enough anymore. I think Allie feels very important and special when we proudly display a work of her very fine art.

Last Sunday she drew likenesses for her papa, her grammy, her uncle trent... My mom hung them all up on the fridge when she was done. The funnest part was that we could actually tell who each of the drawings were. She captured my dad's plaid shirt and gray hair so perfectly and tilted Trent's black cap just so.

For her, art is a dynamic sport. I wish I had a little video camera that could capture the true genius involved in creating these great masterpieces. She sings at the top of her lungs in a most operatic voice, and takes frequent twirling and leaping breaks. For a kid who struggles with ADHD, this is a very good outlet for her. I hope she continues to find expression through art (or dance... or music... or her current combination of all three). We sure love you Al!

Taking a Vote - Do We Love? Or Do We Hate?

I changed my blog (as you can see). I'm not sure if I love or if I hate. What do you think? I saved my old template in case I just couldn't stand the new one, but I'm going to give it a few days to grow on me. Here's a screen shot of the old. Let me know... old?... new? It's such a big decision, I know.

Thank Goodness for Insurance

I'm mostly blogging this for my own benefit, so forgive me while I update my surgery total. I got the bill from the anesthesiologist today and it brought my grand total to:

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$9,155.80.

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With my insurance, it only cost us a $50 co-pay. Whew! I'm so glad we're insured.

The Covert Mankie Swap

When Audrey was born my mom crocheted a beautiful blanket for her. Audrey took right to it right away and it became her 'mankie'. This, of course, is the only blanket she ever wants now. Through the past two years it has grown exponentially. Audrey has stretched it out so big that it's almost twin-bed size. And of course she wants to carry it around with her everywhere she goes. She is always screaming and cursing out her mankie because it's so big and so heavy that it won't go around corners very well. It's always getting snagged on something. This has become a problem because the older she gets, the more vocal she has become. I begged my mom to make her a replacement mankie, and being the angel she is, she got started right away. Yesterday when we went over to my mom's house, my mom had laid it all out for her in the entry way. Audrey immediately picked it up and started carrying it around. New mankie is considerably smaller than old mankie and my mom used a much lighter weight yarn. I am very optimistic about this change. I tucked old mankie away up in Audrey's closet and I'm thinking it's there to stay. Here was our conversation last night:

Mom: Audrey, it's time for bed.

Audrey: Where mankie go?
Mom: Here it is (handing her the new blanket)
Audrey: (looking at me with much skepticism) No! mankie!
Mom: Here's your blanket (again handing her the new blanket)
Audrey: (Inspecting the blanket closely - still with much skepticism) Oooo-kaaaaay???????

That was the end of our conversation and this morning she woke up dragging it around behind her. Thanks mom! This should make our lives just a little easier.

OLD MANKIE.

You can see how she has to drag it behind her. I wish I had

a better picture that showed the whole thing. I'm afraid

of what might happen if she saw me take it out of storage to get

a picture though. All of our hard work may be lost.

NEW MANKIE

So much better. She can hold the whole thing in one arm.

Saturday Was a Very Fun Day

I was really hoping to be at church right now since I'm feeling much better, it's Mothers' Day, the girls have a primary program, and I really miss all of my church friends. But, poor Ryan woke up feeling terrible. I didn't think I was quite up to the challenge of battling all three girls at church by myself. That would probably do me in. So... I have decided to blog instead.
For Mothers' Day my Mother-in-Law really wanted a playground for the grandkids to play on. We all showed up at 10:00 Saturday morning to surprise her with her gift and to start putting it together. I wasn't much help (at all) so I designated myself as the official photographer instead. It only took 8 1/2 hours to assemble. (No exaggeration) It was fun watching Ryan and his brothers work together. They don't get to see each other nearly enough. When it was done, the shouts of joy from the grandkids made it worth every minute of time, every stiff back, and every splinter.

Here are some pictures of the whole event. Brandon made a super fancy video of the whole thing too.

Growing Up

Last night Khursten asked me if Santa Clause was real, and this morning when I was doing her hair, she told me she was too old for piggy tails. When did this happen? :(

A Sad Day For Sarah, Indeed

This past week and a half Ryan has been helping out with chores around the house. He has gone from chore to chore and made suggested 'improvements' on some of my less-than-effective methods. I guess I have done the same things the same way for so long that I am kind of stuck in my routine, and it hasn't occurred to me that things could work more smoothly some other way. Anyway... As Ryan was putting away my clothes in my closet, he discovered just how crowded my closet actually is. Our closets are the same size, but mine was holding approximately 17X as many clothes as his was. Ryan is very neat, to say the least - he likes his closet neat and he literally finger-spaces his hangers on the rod. (I love you Ryan) When I put my clothes away, I have to hip-check the masses of clothes, squeeze my arm into the small space, push back with my bum, and hope for enough room to hang up one more hanger. This method (although it's worked fine for me in the past) was one such suggestion for improvement that Ryan made for my systems of organization. After a week's worth of complaints about his inability to hang up my clothes, I finally broke down and agreed to clean it out -with Ryan by my side, for emotional and physical support (I still can't lift anything) It started off very slowly - a shirt here, a pair of jeans there... Finally we reached the deep, dark abysses in the back. This is the place where I keep all of my clothes (of various sizes) that I have absolutely no prayer of ever fitting into again. These are my clothes that I often refer to as my 'motivation clothes', but that really just sit in my closet mocking me in a very de-motivating way. With the help and support of Ryan by my side, I decided to finally face facts. I will never be able to wear these again. It's time for them to move on to a happier life where they can actually breathe fresh air and are not forced in shame to the back of the closet. My sisters and I usually give each other all of our hand-me-downs. It's kind of a 'thing' we do. We pass around clothes so much that they often end up right where they started. But, alas, we're all about the same size these days. So...hello D.I., here we come! The saddest part for me is that most of these clothes are really cute. Unfortunately for me, the days when I was skinny enough to wear these gems were also the only days when I was rich enough to afford them. Three kids has it's way of dumbing down a gal's wardrobe. With a tear in my eye, I wave farewell to these 14 shirts, 6 sweaters, 3 camis, 6 pair of capris, 3 pair of dress pants, 2 skirts, and 10 pairs of jeans. I'm gonna miss ya! I'm just glad Ryan doesn't know about the 8 prom dresses, 2 bridesmaid dresses, 7 old dance uniforms, 2 pair of dance shoes, and the wetsuit I'm stashing under the bed.

April Showers?

After the snow lingered for a month longer than I thought it should, I wasn't so sure we'd have the chance for April showers. I guess the rain just decided to come late too. This is my absolute favorite time of year. I love the smell and the sound of the warm rain tapping on my windows, and the greenness all around. The rain still draws me outside and, admittedly, I find I still have a strong desire to grab an umbrella and dance in the rain. I decided to introduce my girls to the joys of spring showers. Audrey was not so sure about the whole thing and was very preoccupied by the fact that her feet were getting wet, but Allie took right to it, whirling and twirling like a proper young girl should. I love the rain!

A Great Example

On Saturday my nephew Kaden set such a great example for all of his cousins. He made the choice to get baptized. It was so neat watching him beam with pride all throughout his little baptism program. My girls were so enthralled with the whole event. Khursten has now been asking me how many days until she gets to be baptized. I'm so proud of Kaden and the awesome choices he's making in his life. Here are some pictures of the big event (Jill I totally stole these from your blog, but I forgot my own camera so...)

Mr. Fix-It & Bubble Time Fun

I think I'm really liking this new domestic side of Ryan. I woke up from a nice long nap this afternoon to find Ryan installing a new faucet! What an amazing sight! Isn't he cute?

When I was a little girl, bubbles were a fantastic source of magical mystery. I was amazed at how a little bit of soapy water could turn into a beautiful rainbow swirled bubble and float away. My dad was the coolest bubble dad. He was always coming up with bubble-making mechanisms. He would go up on top of our roof and blow the most gigantic bubbles we had ever seen. All of the neighbor kids would come out to watch. I am not as inventive as my dad was, but I have found that a $0.99 bottle of Wonder Bubbles and two drinking straws can create the same sort of magic in my girls' lives.

Khursten was so cute. She danced and swirled with every bubble she blew

Allie took a more serious approach

Here are the three of them all dipping in the bubbles together.

Here's me at age 10 blowing giant bubbles.

Here's the scrapbook Page

Ryan Should Win Dad / Husband of the Year

I'm pretty much my self again and I'm looking around my house and I've gotta say, Ryan's a pretty great stay-at-home dad. Far better than myself, I'll have to admit. Every time I have wandered downstairs during the week, I always found the house spotless. All the dishes are always in the dishwasher, he's gone grocery shopping, he did the banking, he even did a few loads of laundry. I'm very, very, very impressed. He even said, "Ya... I think I could do this whole stay-at-home dad thing." The only thing I may want to work on is personal appearance of the girls. A bath may have been good and possibly a brush. This is what I came downstairs to find. I can't give too much criticism though because they were happy, the were fed, and the were working on cleaning their rooms. Thanks Ryan for giving it your all this week and for being such an awesome husband/dad.

Before... & Now

The moment of truth arrived. I got to take all of the bandages off this morning and see my new self. I have to admit, it's quite the shock. They are smaller than I had discussed with the doctor, and I had kind of a roller-coaster moment, but I guess there's nothing I can do about them now. I'm not going back in for an augmentation. Plus, going from what I was... I'm guessing anything would have taken me by surprise. So... the goal for today is to love my new self. I definitely feel free and kind of sportier like maybe I want to join you 5:00 am-ers and go for a 10 mile jog. J/K.

Due to the constant urging of a few squeaky wheels, I have decided (very reluctantly) to post a couple of before and after shots. Please keep in mind that these are NOT glamour shots in any way. The 'befores' were taking at like 1:00 am the night before my surgery, and the 'afters' were taken this morning and I still can't even do my own hair. :( So pardon my lovely appearance. I WILL LOVE THE NEW ME!

(Sorry, photos were for a limited time only)

:)

Day 3

Ouch!